Flanagan Clan

I need to update you on my endoscopy that I had on Monday. I was so nervous the whole day. Check in was at 2 PM, so we had to leave around 12:30 to get up to Seattle. I had been NPO that morning and having a bit of bad pain from Liam head butting me right in the feeding tube the day before, so I took some oxycodine before the time limit where I wasn’t suppose to drink anymore. I only took 1/4 the recommended dose, but it made me dizzy and very loopy. So I wasn’t feeling the best as we made our trek up to Seattle, but at least I was not in pain. They got me situated pretty quickly into a chair to ask questions about medical history, put in an IV, etc. the nurse who did the IV was in training and I know that the only way they learn is to practice on people, but oh my gosh she was really slow about putting it in and it hurt. I was worried that she would do it wrong and have to redo it, but it worked. At least she didn’t miss, which has happened to me a number of times. When it was finally my turn they administered all my medications through the IV and it stung quite a bit. Thankfully once they started doing that the first thing they gave was benedryll which made me very sleepy and not care as much. When I was wheeled into the procedure room they went over a few last things and then the doctor came in. He had done the first unsuccessful endoscopy I had to place a stent in my esophagus (not the one where it tore, but the first thing they tried to do to fix it). He immediately mentioned that I looked a lot better than I had the last time he saw me (which I had a hard time believing because I was really out of it thanks to benedryll). Hr also mentioned that I looked like I lost weight, which was very true since I’m down 10 lbs since this all happened. He explained the procedure one last time and the last thing I remember him saying was that if the esophagus was still damaged he’d be legally obligated to put in another stent. I was not happy about that at all! They moved me onto an x-ray table, which is where they were going to perform the procedure, and the nurse gave me this absolutely disgusting clear gel to gargle and swallow, which was suppose to help numb my throat. I could only get a little down before my gag reflex kicked in, but she said that was good enough. Seriously, in the past 3 weeks I have been asked to swallow some of the yuckiest things I’ve ever tasted!!! After I swallowed the stuff I laid back down and after that my mind is blank… until I woke up in recovery. The nurse had me drink water and it felt weird, but now that I look back on it I’m not sure why. Probably because my throat still felt funny from the stuff they made me swallow to numb everything. After a while she had me sit up and eventually stand, and once I was stabile I got dressed and walked to a different room to wait for Andrew and the doctor. I don’t remember much about this other than the doctor took a while to come and when he did he told us that the stent had been removed and the esophagus was healing well. The best part was that he told me I was able to start a soft food diet, which is still very restrictive and I can’t eat breads or most meat or anything, but it is so much better than the purée diet that I was on for 2 1/2 weeks.

So, currently I’m on soft foods for the next 2-4 weeks, until I can start tolerating normal food (although I’m not sure how to tell if I am tolerating it or not…). I still have my feeding tube and my G tube, both of which I am hoping will come out in a week with my next appointment with my surgeon. Until then I am still on light activity, no lifting, and I’m still supplementing with tube feedings for 4-5 hours every day. In some ways I feel so ready to regain normal activity, but yesterday I can definitely tell that I overdid it because my abdominal muscles are so very achy today. It hurts a lot to bend over because of the tubes. My actual incision site has healed up well (as far as I can tell) and gives me very little pain. For the most part I’ve been able to just take children’s tylonal for the pain, although the head butt incident I mentioned did require something stronger. My sleep schedule is still messed up and my house is very disorganized at the moment, but I can tell that things are getting better and I am so anxious to get these tubes out!!! I feel like the nightmare is almost over and I’m so thankful for all the prayers and help we’ve received during this terrible trial in our lives.